wounded river push along
by cellophane prince
Summary: A private purgatory.


_You blew through me like bullet holes__  
Left stains on my sheets and stains  
On my soul_

He didn't receive any letters from his mother that year. He watched the window carefully in the long mornings, as he curled himself under the bedsheets, hiding from the sun, waiting for the pelican to descend upon the earth and bring him message from the public notary. It was only a matter of time.

The early days of September brought a blanket of gray between the cracks of the trees, the cold and wet seeping down through the gaps in his roof. He had been meaning to fix it, before Nook could charge him for it.

Something about the weather was comforting to him; an ocean colored deep charcoal breathing fresh wind into his lungs as a child, while the fog was like sleeping powder over the rust-coated tin roofs. There was sand in his eyes then; or at least, it was everywhere. On rare days when the heat from the sun was trapped beneath the cloud ceiling the air felt hotboxed like his neighbor's car late at night, the same sharp smells billowing into the room.

He breathed deeply into his pillow, preparing himself for the world outdoors. This was good for him. Animal Town was the right decision and it always would be.

Tabby had let herself into his house the other night. Those eyes, she was always tweaked. He sat in his collapsing chair and watched television; she wasn't exactly invited, really, but at least she knocked. After putzing around the room gazing at the carpet, feeling the wood paneling splinter between her claws, she borrowed a can of tuna and departed.

He walked everywhere, now. There was no reason not to. The bridge across the stream collapsed once under the weight of the bull who lived on the east side of town. "Tortimer's got some god damn 'splainin' to do about this shit," Chuck trembled furiously after shaking the water from his gut. He'd scared away all the fish.

Back and forth, back and forth. The town limits shrunk by the minute. There were nineteen pear trees he found between the corners; Nook stopped buying them so it didn't matter much anymore aside from staving away hunger, which didn't seem to be much of a priority to anybody anyway.

He felt like the bum with a home, who hung in doorways other than his own. Sometimes he wished he was an otter so he could swim to an island. He was always anxious to learn. "Yeah, and I'm tryin' to slice up Apollo's wings and go to the top of the cliff," Stitches exhaled between rips. The sound of bubbling dirt filled him with the idea of taking every piece of trash he'd ever found washed up on the shore and fashioning a raft. What else was going to happen to it, anyway? Nobody knew, and maybe that was the worst part.

Like Noah and his fucking ark.

The city still came to him as in a dream. Its buildings shot violently into the sky, scraping the sun so it would never shine. They careened as though on the edge of the world. Out beyond there was nothing anyway. No towns, no life. His mother suffered from human sickness; addiction kept her in bed, twirling beneath the covers. Lonesome, in company. She would surface from the noise of her serum polished by the evening news, to instruct him in broken parables and the Gospel of John. To her the city was filthy with miscegenation, "bestiality" she called it. He had a job living under her roof, but that isn't why she hated him from moving away.

"Well MY parents were child psychologists," Stitches added. No one was certain whether he was real.

He supposed he could default on his mortgage payments, but then would he do? Watch more television, shoot the shit with Booker and rummage through the lost and found? Leave more glass bottles in the stuffed bear's windowsill before stumbling back home at the end of every night? Stitches was getting upset about his room's style points, or whatever it was. Said there was a company that said they'd give him something good. It was like the lottery, or those commission-only expensive drinks with açaí, where everyone invested and nobody won. All the colors in the house hurt his head anyway.

He sobbed in his sleep because he was too dumbfounded by his waking life. The alienation of his new surroundings kept him in shock. Sometimes his newly-mundane routines kept him blacked out from his own life, as he misplaced events and conversations brought up by others later. Sitting on the beach and gazing at the tumbling shore was one thing he liked to do, maybe taking out his brand-new fishing rod and trying his hand at the snappers.

Wherever he went, his life followed in the shade, and infected all who lived around him.

"Hey bud," they said, smiling dully in the way they always did. "I haven't seen you all week."

Fishing for days. The cicadas shrieked in the midday when his eyes were washed out by the sun, and he slept. On Saturday nights he'd head into the basement and catch K.K. Slider's act again. The pigeon at the bar knew he didn't like cream in his coffee but he dropped it in anyway, stirring the bird shit around like loose change in a jar.

He tried not to sit too close to the stage; he was afraid of being noticed by the only one who'd recognize him. How he wished to collapse on that wooden floor and have the white mutt sing the world to him, his acoustics braying heavenward like balloons with gifts tied to the string, floating far away.

Pat, pat, pat. White clouds followed him when he ran. The metal pole was hot like the campfire in his room. The turtle behind the wheel sang the tunes he'd heard the night before, lights flickering through the ceiling fans like stars.

"...now, wait a moment, ye wee snappin' turtle. I never got yer name!"

He blinked.

_No time fer talkin' all whistful-like about them olden days._


End file.
